Throughout the 2022 primary season, groups affiliated with the Democratic Party funded ads to boost immoderate Republican candidates. The goal was to boost the least moderate candidates in the hopes that they would be easier to beat in a general election. Now that Americans have voted, it looks like the gamble worked. Democrats exercised their free speech, but did they set a good precedent?
Typically, ads paid for by Democratic groups would take one of two strategies: Some attacked more moderate candidates, like a New Hampshire ad that labeled Republican Chuck Morse a "sleazy politician" hand-picked by "Mitch McConnell's Washington establishment." Others were more subtle, like a Maryland ad blasting gubernatorial candidate Dan Cox as former President Donald Trump's "handpicked candidate" who is "fighting to end abortion in Maryland" and "will protect the Second Amendment at all costs, refusing to support any federal restrictions on guns." In the latter case, the ad sought to highlight Cox's conservative bona fides, slyly making him more appealing to Republican voters.
